


We Were Waiting for Each Other

by thedisneyface (loveneverfails)



Category: Community
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-13
Updated: 2012-05-13
Packaged: 2017-11-05 06:45:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/403530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveneverfails/pseuds/thedisneyface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because if anyone understands the pain of losing people, it's Annie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Were Waiting for Each Other

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after 3x07. I wrote this months (and months and months) ago, during the hiatus and I've been too shy to post it. I wrote it with inspiration from 1x21 (Abed's speech to Jeff about how the group just needs to get him) and 1x17 (when Abed talks about his friends leaving in the past) and various other headcanons I have about Abed's reasons for moving Annie into his apartment. This was written before Virtual Systems, so I apologize for some of the overlapping feelings Abed expresses. Purely a coinky-dink!

"Abed, can I ask you a question?"

It's well into the late evening of #AnniesMove (it's only been twelve hours living at Casa de Trobed and she's already using the phrase 'hashtag' in conversation; how's that for loosey-goosey?). All of the pizza has been eaten, the beer long gone, and one by one, the study group have gone back to their own homes. The sound of Troy's soft snores are the only sound heard from the blanket fort as Abed and Annie each sit in a recliner facing the television. An episode of Three's Company plays across the television in front of them (Abed's choice, as an homage to their new living situation), but Annie's eyes are observing Abed's profile. It takes a moment but his brown eyes flicker from the screen to her face and he nods once, in approval, and she takes a deep breath.

"Why did you ask me to move in?" It's the question that's been weighing heavily on her mind since the night he invited her - amidst the laughter and dancing and the off-key singing. She'd tried to approach the subject with him before - before she had ever agreed to it - but he was evasive, just telling her it was part of their 'character arcs' and Troy was equally unhelpful, only mentioning something about needing a girl around to keep them from doing anything too crazy. (In hindsight, she's guessing this was in direct relation to the fork jousting incident.)

There's a long stretch of silence as Abed looks back to the tv, as if weighing the question heavily and when he looks back, there's a vulnerability in his eyes that Annie has never seen before. She's not sure where it comes from, but at once she can feel her heart clench tight in her chest and she wants to reach out, hug him, do something, and she's not really sure why. But she's afraid to move, like she might scare him - or worse, that look - away if she moves too quickly. So she sits still beside him instead, hands clasped primly in her lap and holds her breath, waiting.

"I'm used to people leaving, Annie," he says and his voice is still his, but it isn't. It's not quite a character that he's playing because he's still very much Abed; but he's older, wiser, and at once Annie knows this isn't just a role he's using to express himself better or to evade reality once again. This is Abed - the person underneath all of the movie references and silly antics. He's showing her a piece of himself that he rarely gives anyone, letting down his guard and being genuinely real. For her, of all people. Suddenly Annie feels undeserving, which is a feeling she doesn't have a lot of experience dealing with.

"My friends, my mom. People tend to leave when they realize I'm not the person they thought I was." His voice trails off at that and she so desperately wants to speak up, to seek answers to all of the questions she's never asked about his life before Greendale. But she doesn't miss the flicker of pain in his eyes before they dart back to the television. She hates seeing it and her tiny hands ball into fists at her sides as they physically ache to scoot over to the arm of his chair and hug him.

Because if anyone understands the pain of losing people, it's Annie.

Little Annie Adderall had it all, once upon a time. She'd been a straight A student, she'd had a small - but nice - handful of friends, she'd even had a boyfriend. But most importantly (at least to her family), she'd been on the straight track to an Ivy League school. She was never popular by any means - that was reserved for people like Little Annie's unrequited crush, who now slept only a few feet from her. But what she lacked in popularity and friendship, Annie had more than made up for in pure drive and intellect. Annie had been the brains in her class, always first to raise her hand, always the one to get an A, always the one people came to for help with homework. She'd relished the role of overall goody-goody and class brains.

But that all changed after her nervous breakdown. Her life - the one she'd so carefully constructed with all the right answers and five year plans for the future - took a nosedive after she started taking the Adderall. No one wanted to be friends with the girl who had run through a plate glass window. Images of Little Annie Adderall screaming on the floor, trying to warn everyone about the robot invasion replaced images of studious Annie Edison who always had all the right answers.

And so, one by one, Little Annie Adderall lost all of her friends, her boyfriend (who, as it turned out, happened to be gay anyway), and her ticket to an Ivy League school. Worst of all though, she'd lost her family. The people who were supposed to love her the most, the ones who were supposed to be proud of her for bettering herself by entering rehab, turned their back on her when she'd needed them the most. She doesn't talk about it, though. Because it doesn't define her, just like the Adderall meltdown didn't. She's still Annie Edison: straight A student, driven, and hardworking.

So, while Annie understands what it's like to lose people, she can't understand why anyone would leave Abed. Sure, he was eccentric and sometimes emotionally distant. His references to pop culture and the way he related everything back to characters on television was annoying at times. But there were so many good things about Abed, too. He was loyal, always jumping on board with a plan, no questions asked. He was always the one to see things that no one else did. Like Annie, he was meticulous with details. He cared about everyone in the group, even if he wasn't the best at expressing it. Like when he'd asked her to move in. No one else in the group had offered Annie a way out of her bad neighborhood. But Abed had. Abed - who only last year was afraid of letting his best friend move in with him - had opened his new apartment to her. He was pretty great if you stuck around long enough to see it. And Annie couldn't imagine why anyone would want to give up his unfaltering loyalty.

"But Troy, you, the study group - you haven't left yet." Abed's voice breaks the silence that seemed to stretch on as the television hums softly in the background. His head cocks to the side as if he's trying to decipher what all of this means, his brown eyes burning holes into the screen. His voice remains monotone, but there's something Annie's never heard in it before. Acceptance, honesty, some raw emotion that's beyond her range of emotional depth. It's all happening so fast, this brief flash of Abed's pure heart laying open before her, that she wishes for once he was right - that this were a tv sitcom that she could press pause on and rewind to review again later. "I keep waiting," he murmurs, so softly that Annie thinks she might have misheard him until he continues. "I figured it would happen first semester. I'd do something that would make you all too frustrated and you'd stop talking to me or worse, kick me out of the group. You'd all see whatever it is I do that makes everyone leave." His eyes, dark and sad, and so wise finally lift to meet hers and there's a sad smile on his mouth now, too. It's just a quirk, tugging at the edge of one corner of his lips. "And I just thought if I asked you to move in here too, that," he pauses and that sad smile of his grows, lopsided and full of so much innocent hope that Annie finds her heart doing that weird clenchy thing again. "That maybe I wouldn't lose you, too." And then his head turns back to the television with a nod and Annie knows the moment is over.

She stares at Abed's profile for a long time, so much so that she doesn’t even notice when one episode ends and another begins.

Little Annie Edison knows what it's like to lose people because of disappointment. She also knows what it's like to love someone so much that you cause them to freak out and push you away. But she's never known this feeling: the feeling of being wanted. He wants her here, with him. She realizes now that this, moving in with Troy and Abed, wasn't about pity. It wasn't even because she needed a new place to stay. This is because Abed wants her. He wants her in his life. She's part of a family now - one that's smaller and more tight-knit than the study group as a whole. This is her new family: Troy and Abed. And she smiles to herself as she settles back into her chair, knowing she and Abed will never leave one another, like all their friendships in the past.

She doesn't say anything as she reaches her hand across the small gap between the recliners and finds the warmth of Abed's hand. He doesn't even flinch as his fingers lace with hers.

He doesn't have to understand the emotion behind the gesture to understand the reason for it. He already knows: Annie's not leaving him either.


End file.
